Most architectures are derived from systems that share a similar set of concerns. This similarity can be described as an architectural style, which can be thought of as a particular kind of pattern, albeit an often complex and composite pattern (a number of patterns applied together). Like a pattern, an architectural style represents a codification of experience, and it is good practice for architects to look for opportunities to reuse such experience. Examples of architectural styles include a distributed style, a pipe-and-filter style, a data-centered style, a rule-based style, and so on. A given system may exhibit more than one architectural style. As Shaw and Garlan describe it:

[An architectural style] defines a family of systems in terms of a pattern of structural organization. More specifically, an architectural style defines a vocabulary of components and connector types, and a set of constraints on how they can be combined.9

And in terms of the UML:

[A pattern is] a common solution to a common problem in a given context.10

In addition to reusing experience, the application of an architectural style (or a pattern) makes our lives as architects somewhat easier, since a style is normally documented in terms of the rationale for using it (and so there is less thinking to be done) and in terms of its structure and behavior (and so there is less architecture documentation to be produced since we can simply refer to the style instead).

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